Pathways: PSC Calls for A Moratorium

Below is the PSC’s September 18, 2012 update on the reprisals that Queensborough Community College Vice President Karen Steele announced after the English Department voted “no” on three-hour, three-credit composition courses for Pathways.

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The response to Queensborough Community College Vice President Karen B. Steele’s announcement of sweeping reprisals against the QCC English Department following its rejection of proposed curriculum changes for Pathways has been swift, intense and national. Condemnation has come not only from the PSC, but also from CUNY’s English Discipline Council, from other English department faculty and from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

SHIFT IN TONE
On September 16,2012, Queensborough Community College President Diane B. Call responded with a shift in position and tone. In a message to the entire College faculty she wrote that Vice President Steele’s memo illustrated “the worst case scenario – one we are prepared to work mightily to avoid.” And one day later, on September 17,2012, Vice President Steele herself wrote to the English Department: “I deeply regret having sent the original e-mail, primarily because it was needlessly hurtful to members of the English Department and to other faculty as well. It was an e-mail sent in haste, out of an over-dramatized fear of the possible impact on the department.”

On behalf of the CUNY faculty and staff, the PSC leadership thanks Vice President Steele for her public apology, and recognizes that the QCC administration has changed its position in response to the outcry the original position provoked. Faculty at Queensborough Community College are especially grateful for Vice President Steele’s willingness to apologize in public.

Given these developments, the union will hold in abeyance its filing of a legal charge of retaliation at the Public Employment Relations Board while we continue to monitor the University’s actions.

An apology, however, is not a retraction. Neither President Call’s message nor Vice President Steele’s explicitly retracts the possibility that they will implement the reprisals threatened in Steele’s initial memo. Vice President Steele writes: “I would like to make clear that the items listed in the e-mail were hypothetical, and there are no plans to enact them.” This comment, together with President Call’s description of the reprisals as a “worst case scenario,” leaves open the possibility that the reprisals could still be enacted in response to some undefined action. The possibility that the QCC administration will take the actions originally listed by Vice President Steele has not been removed.

The Queensborough administration’s apology and withdrawal of the immediate threat of reprisals are important, but damage has already been done. Faculty at Queensborough have now heard that their reappointment is potentially connected to their vote on curriculum. That message is not easily forgotten. And the explicit threats at Queensborough echo more subtle threats that have been made at other campuses, as administrators communicate to department chairs and faculty members about the consequences of their votes on Pathways curriculum.

The atmosphere of intimidation that now surrounds faculty votes on Pathways curriculum is antithetical to a university. The way for the CUNY administration to change it is to issue an unambiguous message that it respects the faculty’s right to vote on matters of curriculum – free from intimidation – according to their judgment of the best interests of their students and the standards of their profession.

IMPOSED
The Pathways resolution was imposed on the University without participation by elected faculty governance. While QCC’s shift of position and public apology are important, the resort to threats exposes the fear that the Pathways curriculum would not be approved without them. At a minimum, it is time for a moratorium on implementation of Pathways to allow academic freedom and open deliberation at CUNY to be repaired. The PSC calls on the CUNY administration to suspend all implementation of Pathways until at least the end of the current semester so that this important curriculum change can receive the free and open consideration it deserves.
The PSC’s initial statement on QCC’s threatened reprisals is online here.
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